Kitchener blues singer and class act Cheryl Lescom, a former Londoner, is back in downtown London for the Firehall Reunion.

The annual event brings together the old Firehall club’s extended family of stars and fans as they recall the good times at Dundas and Talbot back in the day.

“Fun — it’s fun,” Lescom said this week when asked for the first word to describe the Firehall that came to mind.

“Bars were like a big rec room. We were very supportive and loyal,” she said.

Fun it was — and why not?

Huge of heart and soul and voice, Lescom knew how to command a stage and crowd.

She was also a young queen with the best blues courtiers around.

When Lescom first hit London stages, she could count on such allies as guitarist Bill Durst, bassist Jim Corbett and drummer Ed Pranskus a.k.a. 3/4 of London Music Hall of Fame rockers Thundermug.

Other guitar aces who added fire to her lineups in those days were Jack Whiteside and Tim Woodcock.

It’s Woodcock who is looking out for Lescom, 59, on Saturday. She’s sent along her setlist which has some originals from her work with the roots-minded Tucson Choir Boys and are likely to show up on her next album.

Lescom also knows there is one song she must perform Saturday, one this queen’s fans expect.

“I have to do Rather Go Blind. It’s seems I can’t get off the stage (without singing it),” Lescom said.

I’d Rather Go Blind was a hit for U.S. blues star Etta James, one of the mothers in blues for Lescom.

She also looks back to hearing Robert Plant with Led Zeppelin as another career-shaping moment.

So was meeting Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson at a Kitchener club in the 1970s.

An admirer of all three can’t help noticing the Wilsons play the RBC Theatre at Budweiser Gardens about a month after Lescom fires up the Firehall Reunion.

There was clearly a lot of long-term blues and rock power surging around in that Kitchener club back in the day.

Lescom studied music for a year and then went on the road, fronting several bands and backing up such shy-and-retiring frontmen as Long John Baldry and Ronnie Hawkins.

At some point, she chose to step back from the gigs, even turning down a lucrative deal in the U.S. to raise her sons.

Her marriage ended and she returned to her hometown of Kitchener after living in London for about two years in the 1980s and also on the East and West Coasts.

Those sons are now young men in their 20s, “jocks,” she called them.

One son, a football player, went to Western. The other is at the University of Toronto where he is pursuing a theatre career.

As much as they love their mother, those sons have learned from her about the sad blues truth when it comes to life in the music business.

The big money is almost never there — and the constant gigs can destroy relationships.

Lescom knows the risks. After more than 20 years as a performer, she released her first indie album All The Way in 1995. She mortgaged the family home to pay for it.

These days, she is ready to say goodbye to her 50s, a decade that called on all her courage.

About 10 years ago, Lescom was diagnosed with cancer — non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

She was in hospitals and clinics in London, Hamilton and Kitchener for her treatment.

She lost her hair. She couldn’t sing.

Later in the 2000s, Lescom battled back. She was the 2005 Jimmy Lewis lifetime achievement award recipient, honouring the memory of James Craig (Jimmy) Lewis, a longtime blues musician in London who played bass from a wheelchair.

Now, Lescom can say she’s cancer-free.

With four or five projects on the go, the queen is busy creating. And enjoying.

Looking back, she knows what has brought her to that good place and has been with her every step of the way.

“Music was my salvation. I had no father and my mother worked all the time . . . music was my salvation,” said the queen.

“I’m a different person when I’m on stage, I’ve never been able to put my finger on it, but it does something to me and I enjoy having these two people in me.”

— c. 1980s-early 1990s

“I brought (her older son) down to London to one of the festivals I was doing and he said: ‘Get off that stage and get those clothes off right now. And who do you think you are anyway?’ He sounded like my mother 25 years ago.”

— Jan. 1996

“I’m singing better than I’ve ever sung in my whole life. Maybe that’s just because I’m feeling more than I’ve ever felt in my whole life . . . I’m a happier person than I was before. I’m not nearly as sarcastic. I’m not as cynical. I’m a better friend, I’m a better mother. I just think I’m a better person.”